Travelog for: Mittens

Hosts for Mittens:
1) carlissa- Miami, FL (ARRIVED) (SENT)
2) skylerdragon- St. Louis area (ARRIVED) (SENT)
3) Tess {currently unavailable for hosting}
4) Oksana- Novosibirsk, Russia (ARRIVED) (SENT)
5) Hilda (ARRIVED)
6) Eryah- The Netherlands
7) Lejow
8) Apperveilchen
9) Kira1997
10) xoparis- Sacramento, California

I have arrived in Miami, Florida!  Brrr! I thought it would be warm here, but it's 54°F and windy.  My host told me it was warm yesterday, but a cold front came through last night. 

After my host picked me up at the Post Office, she took me to her home, where I was warmly greeted by some other toy voyagers that are staying with her.

Here I am with Prince Charming, Bear Me to U, Picado,  and Billy Goat.:

I went to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden today!  I had lots of fun seeing all the pretty flowers and there was some artwork by Dale Chihuly and Roy Lichtenstein on display.

Here I am at the visitor's center:


I read a sign about mangos:


and another sign about the sapodilla tree:


I saw some glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly:




and a sculpture by Roy Lichtenstein:


here I am playing on a leaf:


here's a very pretty lake at Fairchild:

I went to the zoo today with Picado and Resi!  We had lots of fun and saw lots of animals.

I saw a big tiger:


and a tortoise:


I read a sign about Florida's oolite rock:


I tried to talk with the onagers, but they weren't very friendly:


A komodo dragon gave me a ride!


A hippo tried to eat us!

Today I played with some of the cats that live with my host!

Here I am with Monster:


Salem and I had a long chat:


Then I took a nap with Imp and Kit Kat:

My host took us out to dinner tonight at The Melting Pot.  We had some yummy cheese fondue and for dessert, we had even yummier chocolate fondue!

Here I am with Tiger The Best, Resi, Frankenstein, and Smith as we wait for dinner to arrive.


Frankenstein tried to push me into the chocolate fondue!  He really is a monster!

Today is my last day in Miami!  Before I left, I played for awhile with Leo on the balcony.  He has been a good friend during my stay here.



I am now on my way to visit Skylerdragon in Missouri!

Mittens sure took a long way here!  When I opened my mailbox today I was sure I'd find nothing important because I hadn't heard from TV Trail hosts in a while. 

Lo and behold!  4 messages in my email and Mittens in my mail box!  What a nice surprise! 

Thanks for sending mittens my way!  I will be happy to get some pics very soon.  I will post them as I get them. 

I will also send mittens on very soon since she has been MIA for a while!  Thank you for sending her my way!  She is just precious, and her little pink blanket is so cute!

I won a free trip to Colorado!

According to the US Toy Voyager Trail Council, my host has been retired from the circuit. Though he wanted to host this year, there were not enough positions open.  To compensate me for my troubles, I was given a free stay in Colorado's premeire TV destination!  I get to stay in the luxury Wourpet hotel where TVs are pampered and cared for.  The TV Trail director, Wendy, will go over the rest of my itinerary with me. I am so excited.

I am also excited that I get to travel with Candy Cotton.  Candy is a cute pink bunny who is lots of fun.  She will keep me company and I can't wait to stay with her in Grand Junction.  What fun we will have. 

Today I arrived in Grand Junction, Colorado.  We haven't been able to contact my mentor but at least I am not MIA anymore.  Candy Cotton and I arrived together and we met lots of other TVs.  Cool Jules , Lucky-Ducky and Coney are all here.

I haven't really done much since I got here.  The other TVs and I are mostly hanging around the house because its been cold and windy outside.  Wourpet said if it rains she'll let me out to play in some puddles for awhile as long as I don't dig in the new flowers.
Today my host was having an anniversary and we each got some carrot cake -- with a carrot on top.

Hello everyone! Today I've finally arrived in Novosibirsk, Russia to my new host Oksana. I feel very tired after my long journey, but still I'm very happy to meet here 2 other TVs- Budd and Helen Bear. We are now very good friends!

Here we are in dandelions. Dandelions are everywhere here!




Here I'm with Budd on some very beautiful tree:


On the lilac:


And here we are already in Oksana's office with a teddy bear Timosha. It's so-o sweet! Oksana's friend made it.

What a nice and quiet day we have had today! It's Saturday and we decided to rest at home the whole day. So we were sleeping till 11 a.m., then we helped Oksana to do some work about the flat, went into the supermarket to buy some food and went to the post office to receive a package with 2 other TVs-
Teddy Bear Donald and NormaNikkers. We became friends at once! What a pitty that tomorrow Budd and Helen Bear have to leave to their next hosts

Today we went to the post-office in the morning to send Helen Bear and Budd to their next hosts. We all felt a bit sad because we didn't have enough time to play together We will miss our friends very much! We wish them a quick and safe journeys!


When we said good-bye to Helen Bear and Budd, we were walking for some time in the centre of the city where Oksana showed us some interesting places of Novosibirsk, some monuments and buildings.
Here I'm near the Novosibirskaya conservatoire, the monument of the famouse Russian composer Michail Glinke.


The fragment of the monument which shows the scene from his opera "Ruslan and Ludmila" based on the fairy tale written by the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin:


Such billboards are met everywhere in Novosibirsk- they tell about  the parties, concerts, plays which take part in this city.


The monuments of Vladimir Lenin were very popular in the former USSR. We also met some in Novosibirsk. This one stands on the very quite street in  front of one of the Novosibirsk universities.


Dandelions are the most popular flowers in Novosibirsk now! ) They look like small suns in the green grass.


Here I'm near the cafe which is called Aquarium. A nice fish, isn't it?


Not far from that cafe we found this lovely statue of a girl with a fan:


Here I'm on the fur-tree:


The stone heart. It's situated in the Pervomaysky (means May,1) garden. It's one of the symbols for people in love in Novosibirsk. Couples who are just married often comes to that stone heart to make photos. At first it was just a stone sculpture without any writings on it, but then young people wrote their words of love on it.




Here is one more stone sculpture. I guess it's a mother and a child.


And this monument is a gift of the Armenian community to Novosibirs for the 2000th anniversary of Christianity.


Novosibirsk has a Metro. I like it very much. But it's not so long like in Moscow and deep like in St. Petesburg. It has only about  12 stations. The station where our host lives is called Gagarinskaya- it was named after the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

It's early morning, so there are not many people on the station.

Here we are near the local museum. I like that building very much, it looks very old.



And these are the monument of Vladimir Lenin and the House of Opera and Ballet.



In fact June, 1 is the international children's day and it's celebrated in Russia every year. You can see lots of children with their parents in the parks and gardens. Concerts and different games are organized for them.





Oksana and some other guys from the studio of ethnical drums also prepared some action to support children who lost their parents. So they played drums in the park and gathered money to send them in one of the Novosibirsk charity organisations.




And later in the evening Oksana took us to the drum circle to the studio where she plays African drum djembe. It was very interesting there!

Today Oksana went to the cafe to meet with her friends who
also make teddy bears. And she took us with her. We could see many very interesting bears there! They all were very lovely!